


assess the sins he paid for

by crashingmanicwave



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brendon is an escort, M/M, Ryan is a doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 07:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20944382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crashingmanicwave/pseuds/crashingmanicwave
Summary: Maybe he was just a little ashamed, for the first time in a long time.  Too ashamed to show his face in front of the first person in years to openly give a shit, think something of him.





	assess the sins he paid for

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of drabbles I wrote for a roleplay idea that never got well fleshed out, but these turned out pretty good so I'm posting them.

He awoke to the motel alarm blaring directly in his ear, the staticky radio tuning in to some poppy upbeat song that only served to worsen the throbbing headache held in his temples.

Man, he fucking  _ hated _ tequila.

If this guy didn’t pay so well, Brendon would have told him to fuck off with his sweaty hands and poor taste in liquor long ago.

His  _ regulars _ knew he liked a good whiskey, at least.

He stretched until his back popped, face scrunching as he felt the dried, tacky stickiness between his legs.

Another guy who insisted on coming inside, thinking it was hot.

Well, maybe for someone who  _ topped. _

It really wasn’t, not when he had to spend several long, excruciating minutes in the bathroom cleaning that shit out.

In a bathroom probably more diseased than his clients.

He fumbled for the off button on the alarm clock, failed, then proceeded to yank the cord out of the wall.

Blissful silence.

He had set the alarm this morning, for some godforsaken reason.

He couldn’t remember what for, couldn’t focus, the throbbing in his head was too intense.

Maybe he could weasel a good painkiller out of Doctor Ross.

Shit.

It clicked into place, then, why he’d set his alarm and  _ why _ he had set it to the radio setting, the most irritating one that he knew for a  _ fact _ would wake him up.

He was planning on catching Doctor Ross on his lunch, fully intending on swooping by that Thai place on the corner near the clinic, showing up with bags of food to that frankly adorably baffled, scrunched look that came over the good doctor’s face whenever Brendon came by with food.

With a groan, he pushed himself out of bed, glancing over at the alarm clock and scowling at its blank face.

Of  _ course. _

His own fucking doing.

He heaved his tired, sore, hungover body to the bathroom for a quick shower, scalding as he could stand it, squashing a tiny roach on the wall with a well-placed throw of motel shampoo.

At the very least, he had to scrub the stench of sweat and sex and tequila off his person so that he was sort of presentable for Doctor Ross.

The doctor  _ knew _ of his profession, but Brendon had class, he wasn’t about to show up with dried come between his asscheeks and smelling like dirty underwear.

Even if it would make him a little late.

Besides, these meetings of theirs were less formally agreed upon and more just  _ expected _ at this point, with how often Brendon made a point of dropping by unannounced.

Not that he had any other way of getting in contact with Doctor Ross, aside from calling the clinic directly and getting met with his bitchy receptionist who was  _ not _ his biggest fan.

So, he’d pick up the food, breeze into the clinic and plop into the chair across from the doctor’s desk in his shabby little office, apologize for being late, to which Doctor Ross would insist they hadn’t scheduled a meeting, and Brendon would place the food on his desk, catching the doctor’s attention immediately. Maybe he’d get a roll of his eyes for his trouble, or that tiny, barely-there smile that was clearly Doctor Ross trying to project sagelike patience.

Please. He wasn’t any more patient than Brendon was.

Still, he kept letting Brendon into his office with minimal complaint, and always took the food, and that made Brendon feel at least a little better about his day. Even if he had a shitty night coming up,  _ especially _ if he had a shitty night the night before.

So these meetings were important to him.

**\- - -**

Brendon didn’t set foot in a church these days, really hadn’t since he was kicked out of his childhood home at the tender age of seventeen.

Avoided them if he could help it.

Yet he found himself here tonight, late enough that even the priest wasn’t around, puttering behind the altar.

The candles were burned low and nearly to their wicks, casting the church in a hazy, dreamlike light.

He sucked on his cheek, tasting blood, swallowing it down instead of spitting because it may have been a  _ church _ and he wasn’t exactly a  _ fan _ but he had fucking standards.

Head tilted back against the pew with a soft thunk, wanting to laugh but feeling too tired to put in the effort even for cynicism’s sake.

It wasn’t the  _ first _ time a client had slugged him and he’d be kidding himself if he thought it would be the  _ last, _ but it still sucked.

He knew a guy that had gotten punched so hard he’d swallowed a couple of his own teeth.

His tongue traced along his, which were all still accounted for.

Even if there was probably blood in between them from where he’d bitten his tongue on the punch.

Spitting blood in the asshole’s face  _ did _ earn him another punch, but he  _ did _ also get to keep the money.

He still preferred getting paid for sex over getting punched in the face.

Was he going to get in trouble for bruising the merchandise? Probably. But he was a top seller, no way any kind of punishment would stick.

This church, dingy little thing, was the first place he’d sort of wandered into.

Doctor Ross’ clinic was closed at this time, so it wasn’t like he could drop by and bother him.

Well. He probably  _ could, _ because he knew what kind of hours the doctor kept, but.

Maybe he was just a little ashamed, for the first time in a long time. Too ashamed to show his face in front of the first person in years to openly give a shit, think something of him.

His head flopped to the side, and now he did laugh, a soft snort.

The stained glass windows were  _ filthy. _

**\- - -**

Doctor Ross was  _ Ryan _ to him now.

It was a stupid thing to be grinning to yourself about, but Brendon couldn’t help it.

He felt elated, on cloud nine, giddier than the time a client had given him an accidental extra two hundred dollars that he of course immediately pocketed.

The moment played again and again in his mind on loop.

Doctor Ross, speaking in his usual low monotone with perhaps an undercurrent of amusement,  _ You should just call me Ryan, Brendon. _

And that smile, the subtle one Brendon had grown immeasurably fond of, accompanied it.

It hadn’t been a big, earth-shattering moment. Not in the grand scheme of things, nor in the grand scheme of their friendship, even (could he call it that? friendship?) but it felt  _ important. _

They’d just been talking over lunch as usual, Brendon insisting that The Beach Boys were far superior to The Beatles purely for the sake of striking up an argument, and Brendon had probably had a noodle hanging out of the corner of his mouth, when Doctor Ross had actually  _ laughed _ and told him to call him by his first name, further adding that anyone that was going to insult his favorite band to his face needed to be at  _ least _ on a first-name basis with him, that his patients wouldn’t be so bold.

Brendon never really had with anyone else the thing he had with Doctor Ross, or rather,  _ Ryan. _

A friendship that consisted mostly of Brendon pestering him whenever he felt like it, and Ryan tolerating his presence likely for the free food. And sometimes Brendon snuck in for checkups if he needed them in secret.

But that didn’t seem like the typical basis for a friendship, at least not what Brendon knew of it.

He hadn’t had a close friend in a really long time.

**\- - -**

Stupid, stupid, he’d been  _ stupid. _

He thought he’d drop by Ryan’s clinic to check out his wrist, because a client had bent it at a weird angle and it had been swollen and throbbing since, and Ryan was usually not opposed to patching up his bumps and bruises, despite the verbal lashings he’d sometimes dish out.

He’d tell Brendon he was stupid, but he wouldn’t turn him away.

This time, he patiently insisted it was probably just a minor sprain and that he shouldn’t put weight on it or do anything strenuous, even wrapping it up for him, long fingers deft and careful and apologizing in that low voice of his whenever Brendon couldn’t bite back an obvious wince.

There was something there, in that low  _ sorry _ and the careful, almost tender way he held Brendon’s wrist that had him just, leaning in, wanting to be closer, wanting to see that look up  _ close,  _ be closer.

And it was totally without thinking he did it, because Ryan wasn’t pulling away and he was just  _ right there _ and Brendon had gone and kissed him.

Barely a kiss, not like the ones he gave out to paying clients, but something gentle and chaste and so fucking  _ alien _ from his own experiences that he wasn’t aware he was even capable of a kiss like that.

Ryan hadn’t pulled back, hadn’t jumped up in alarm, hadn’t shoved Brendon or smacked him like he was well within his rights to.

He. Well.

That grip on his wrist had ghosted up his arm to hold his elbow, so fucking  _ gently, _ and had he kissed back? Brendon didn’t know, didn’t stop to consider the possibility, because in the next second he was yanking his arm away like he’d been burned, so fast, babbling something about having a client soon even though it was a  _ lie, _ and bolting out of the clinic.

Even now, dragging feet back to his apartment, he licked his lips and tasted  _ Ryan. _

He was no stranger to the taste of other men on his lips, on his tongue, but this felt so much different.

He’d gone and done that, so foolishly, probably ruining the only real friendship he had.

He went back to his apartment and downed the the bottle of expensive whiskey he’d been saving, but it couldn’t seem to chase that taste away.

It was only bitterness now.

**\- - -**

So even he could admit this time that asking Ryan to fuck him was a  _ way _ worse idea than that accidental kiss had been.

It only seemed to piss Ryan off more when he insisted it would be ‘for free’, demanding that Brendon get the  _ fuck _ out of his office.

He’d snorted, and turned to leave, throwing over his shoulder that he should have known Ryan wouldn’t have wanted a whore anyway, and that seemed to deflate him for a moment.

_ ‘That’s not what I meant. Don’t twist my words.’  _ Hands wrapped tight over the edge of his desk, head bowed, not looking at Brendon.

Right. Of course it wasn’t what he meant. 

Only it  _ was, _ he was just too fucking nice to say it to his face.

Ryan had always been kind to him, even when scolding him for making stupid choices. Brendon knew all of that was out of concern, the biting words and long glares.

He was his doctor, for fuck’s sake. He knew what kind of life Brendon lived, knew that he’d been with more men than he could count. Had an idea of how filthy he  _ really _ was.

Brendon never really thought of himself as filthy, not until now, not until this moment.

He thought that maybe if he and Ryan fucked, he could get whatever  _ this _ was out of his system and they could just… go back to the way things were before.

But that was hopeless. He’d ruined too much already.

Ryan wouldn’t even look him in the eye as he left.

Even when he was at his most annoyed, most irritated with Brendon, he always at  _ least _ looked at him.

This was a new low, even for him.

**\- - -**

Ryan was back to being Doctor Ross in his mind and nothing more.

Sometimes he caught himself thinking about what to pick up for lunch, and had to stop himself. Remind himself that no, he was the one who had ended it, it was his fault now that things were ruined.

Ry- Doctor Ross wouldn’t want to see his face anymore.

He’d have to, of course, since he was the doctor they had to go to. But outside of that, Brendon was going to give him what he wanted and not show up to the clinic unless he  _ had _ to.

So life went on, he took clients, sometimes they fucked him and sometimes he fucked them, got handed fat stacks of money for his trouble, and hated himself a little more each day.

He hadn’t  _ cared _ before.

He liked sex fine, even better if he could make money off of it. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know most of the men’s names, couldn’t remember all of their faces, either.

Nameless, faceless bodies. Mindless, mindless sex.

That’s all.

It was a job.

It was the job he’d chosen, the one he was now shackled to, going to be forever tainted by.

If this was his own choice, why the fuck did it  _ hurt _ so much?

He took on more clients in hope of distracting himself, but nothing seemed to work. No matter how many times he fucked, he couldn’t seem to get Doctor Ross out of his head, the way he looked hunched over his desk, the way he couldn’t bear to look at Brendon.

Yeah. He’d been kidding himself, all these years, that he was fine.

Maybe it was okay because it was easy money at first, something someone young and cute like him could do because he didn’t have a lot of alternatives at seventeen.

No high school degree meant no college, and no family or money meant no home.

It seemed like a good enough fit for him, at the time.

But then he just never stopped.

It was  _ easy, _ something he fell into the habit of.

Sex was fun, and if it made him money, well. Nothing wrong with that.

Except now there was  _ everything _ wrong with that.

If he hadn’t sold his body for the past ten years, maybe Doctor Ross wouldn’t hate him now.

Hate what he was.

That he’d even kissed him, even  _ offered _ himself to him.

Brendon knew he did. Hated it more than he ever had.

He’d dragged himself home after a long night with a client, sore and tired and miserable, wanting nothing more than to collapse in bed and forgo even a shower.

But Doctor Ross was waiting outside the door to his apartment, and Brendon could only laugh to himself at the familiar figure, too tired to even  _ try _ to avoid him.

Yeah. Figured.


End file.
